


Maybe I'll Catch Fire

by momebie (katilara)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katilara/pseuds/momebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik would have drowned if the choice had been his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe I'll Catch Fire

**Author's Note:**

> For a friend who wanted some introspection around that first attempt to kill Shaw (Schmidt). It's mostly like the novelization of That Water Scene from Erik's point of view.

The time Erik spent in the hands of Klaus Schmidt had been almost inconsequential. Not because it didn’t mold him or mark him or leave raised and ugly scars in every dream he’d ever have, but because it had been so short compared to the seventeen years—half of his life—he would spend hunting the man down so that he could claim his revenge.

Short, like the time Erik spends in the air after that _woman_ knocks him clear over the edge of the yacht. He’s almost thankful that he has the water to recover in, because it takes him a moment to process the fact that _there are others_. He can remember Schmidt’s idle chatter from the camps. He can almost hear the way Schmidt had turned the word ‘Andere’ over on his tongue, savoring it, as he sent another electric jolt down Erik's spine. But there had never been any mention of a discovery. There had only been words designed to raise Erik’s hopes, disillusion his mind, and force him to give in to anger so hot that he burned himself hollow. He had lost his soul in the camps, and he _would_ take Schmidt's as payment.

Erik is blinded by the floodlights of the Coast Guard's ship as they flare up, chasing away the almost total darkness of the shore line. “No!” he says, jaw tight and teeth grinding, almost choking on the brackish water. “No, no, no. He's mine.” The waves buoy him about and he fights to gain purchase as he reaches out through the water, feeling for anything he can use to attack. There’s a solid, singing line running from the yacht down to the silt below. Erik tugs at the anchor and it tugs back.

Legs kicking, lungs burning with oxygen and salt, he waves his arms frantically around him, feeling the double resistance of the water and the thick chain that holds the anchor attached to the ship. Erik coaxes it from its bed of sand and raises it up into the air as high as he can manage. The chain coils and rears like a snake, and when he can't control its path any longer he sends it flying. It crashes down into the deck and coils through the corridors and floors on its mad chase, cracking wood and plastic and steel as it goes.

The longer he controls the anchor the easier it becomes. Hatred boils within his gut and his mind is little more than flashes of red and black. He much prefers this burn to the heat from the memories that Schmidt's friend had pulled to the surface not minutes before. Helplessness and fear mean nothing now. Hatred he can control. Hatred leaves little to the imagination and is hard to surprise. Hatred has been Erik's compass all these long years and it would not let him miss his mark now.

He whips the anchor around the boat and uses the chain to slice off the upper half. It chases the destruction back across the deck and Erik hopes beyond hoping that it will take a head or two with it as it goes. When everything comes crashing down he allows himself a moment of triumph, but it's only a moment. There is now light coming from under him and when he looks down into the water he sees a submarine disengaging itself from the yacht.

“You won't get away that easily,” he growls. “You will die! I will take you out of this world even if I have to lead the way.” Erik is yelling now, and his throat feels raw as it shapes around the words. He reaches out with his power and tries to grasp at the submarine, but it pulls away at a steady pace, too large and heavy for him to be able to properly manipulate. It doesn't matter. He lets it tug him along in its wake, knowing that wherever Schmidt is going, he will be there too—one step behind, an arms-length away from fulfillment.

Erik doesn't realize that the submarine has pulled him under until a shout rings through his mind. It bursts, a living thing in the middle of his thoughts, and is almost as deafening as the static discharge that had dropped him to the deck of the yacht. _Let go_ , it says. _Let go_.

There is another cascade of memories. Schmidt shooting his mother. Erik as a boy, trapping his first rabbit. Schmidt shaving off Erik’s hair. The dark, leaking hole in the forehead of the first man Erik kills.

He struggles against them, trying to wipe his mind clean with the explosion of red light behind his closed eyelids. He's losing his grip on Schmidt and God so help the person that gets in his way. There will be a death tonight, one way or another.

The voice in his head is pleading now, cajoling. It tells him to calm his mind. It points out that if he drowns then there will be no one to take his retribution. It _knows_ his name. The voice is soon joined by hands that grasp at his torso, and struggle as Erik might he cannot hold on to the submarine any longer. His concentration is broken. He's being dragged to the surface.

“Get off of me!” he shouts, as they break through into the night air. He slaps and pushes with his hands. He wants to hurt something. He doesn't want to be the one hurting any more. “Who are you?”

“My name is Charles Xavier,” the other says, and then turns to shout and draw attention to their location.

“You were in my head!” It's an accusation of a serious offense. Erik barely has room in his mind for his own thoughts let alone the interference of a total stranger. “How did you do that?” he demands. What he wants to say is _how do I make sure you never do that again?_

“I'm like you,” Charles says. It echoes through Erik and reverberates in the empty spaces inside of him. _I'm like you. I'm like you. I'm like you._

This Charles Xavier, with the loud thoughts and the clinging limbs, is also more than human. That makes four of them now, and Erik can't believe it has taken him so long to see what he should have known all along. He should have set his sights wider. He should have been looking for any anomaly. He should have been looking for more than Schmidt.

Now he's found both. Or both have found him. Now Erik has both and he doesn't know what to do with the maniacal joy and relief that washes over him. It's been so long since he felt anything but the anger he’s needed to steel himself against the pain, that this dizzying high takes his breath away and makes him feel deflated. “I thought I was alone.” The words fall out before he has the time to put any conviction behind them.

“You're not alone,” Charles says.

Erik can't help it. He begins to laugh.


End file.
